Ravinder Randhawa

Udham Singh and the Freedom Struggle

A Note: This is a much longer post than I normally write. Using Udham Singh as a central point, I’ve tried to cover some of the events, groups and people who would’ve been part of his revolutionary landscape. It’s a big subject, and when I began researching I came across a great deal of material which couldn’t be included, so I’ve added a reference section for students or those who may want to read further, however it’s in no way exhaustive. In addition, I stumbled on some fascinating anecdotes, such as the one of the bridegroom persuaded by the young Rajguru and Sukhdev to run away just before his marriage ceremony, purloining the wedding gifts of cash, to be contributed to the cause; only returning to his panicked family and bride-to-be at the insistence of Bhagat Singh

Like most British-Asians of Indian origin, I’d always been aware of Bhagat Singh as a great hero and shaheed of the independence movement, but hadn’t known that he was also a writer, editor, and voracious reader, who contributed intellectual force and analysis to the freedom movement, and is regarded as a genius by many. Neither had I known he was the one who came up with the immortal slogan “Inquilab Zindabad.”

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Santa banta

31stJuly dawns. A man awaits the hangman’s noose.

It’s 1940, Pentonville Prison and the man is Udham Singh. Sentenced to death for the killing of Sir Michael O’Dwyer, a former Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab in colonial India.

Twenty-one years previously their destinies had collided on 13thApril 1919. Udham Singh, an orphaned young man was in Jallianwala Bhag, a walled garden in Amritsar, helping to serve water to people who had come from the surrounding areas for the religious festival of Baisakhi, and those who had come for a meeting against the repressive measures of the colonial government. The crowd comprising men, women and children, was unarmed and peaceful.

Empires by their very nature exist by the rule of force, brutality and dehumanisation. Their raison d’être is the enrichment and aggrandisement of the mother country. The British empire was no different, despite the rose-tinted veils so often thrown over it.

If, as Shakespeare wrote “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown,” then fearfully lie the heads that run empires. Power is the most jittery of psychological states, existing in constant apprehension of attack and rebellion. Just look at The Hunger Games. The powerful, ever-suspicious, can only exist by instituting regimes of subjugation and violence, fearing uprisings from those they’ve oppressed. Masterfully illuminated by E.M. Forster in A Passage to India, when Adela, in the depths and darkness of a Malabar cave, imagines that Dr. Aziz has assaulted her, expressing the colonialists’ ever-prevalent sense of threat from the ‘Brown masses.’

Sabrang India

In Amritsar, on 13thApril 1919, in a climate of severe repression, General Dyer (no relation to Michael O’Dwyer) entered Jallianwala Bagh with his troops, sealed off the only exit and ordered his men to fire, and continue firing. Horrifically, they only stopped when their ammunition ran out. Blood drenched the ground. A massacre had been deliberately perpertrated. Adding inhumanity to mass murder, a curfew was declared, preventing aid reaching the wounded, adding to the death toll of the day, and blocking families from recovering the dead bodies of their loved ones. General Dyer later admitted his aim had been to ‘strike terror into the heart of the Punjab…’ He had the full support of Sir Michael O’Dwyer who wrote to him: ”Your action is correct. The Lieutenant Governor approves.”

If truth is the first casualty of war, then truth and justice must be the fist casualties of empire. Two days after the massacre of Jallianwala Bhag, on 15thApril Lieutenant Governor O’Dwyer imposed martial law, with the permission of the Viceroy, and added to the crushing weight of subjugation by backdating it to 30thMarch. Which meant that anyone who had been arrested from 30thMarch could be tried by a military court. Resulting in 264 being transported for life and108 sentenced to death. Summary courts also ordered flogging as a punishment; a wedding party was flogged for being an illegal gathering.

Dyer’s most notorious decree was the ‘crawling order,’ forcing Indians to crawl on all fours along the street where an English missionary, Miss Sherwood, had been attacked, including the people who lived in the street. Quite irrespective of the fact that a Hindu family had actually rescued and looked after Miss Sherwood

On the evening of 13thApril 1919, Udham Singh found that he had survived the massacre but didn’t know that a bullet yet awaited him. Responding to the grief of a woman called Rattan Devi, he defied the curfew and went to Jallianwala Bhag to recover her husband’s dead body, but was shot and wounded.

Living in Amritsar, Punjab, Udham Singh felt the heavy hand of Lieutenant Governor O’Dwyer, and became increasingly aware of the ways in which subjugation was embedded and exercised, the country and its people abused and exploited.

History became alive as a record of enslavement and a struggle for freedom, as he became active in the independence movement, becoming friends with the freedom fighter Bhagat Singh, whom he regarded as a mentor and an inspiration. Udham Singh dedicated himself to the country, and knew his life would be precarious and hazardous.

“Bombs and pistols do not make a revolution. The sword of revolution is sharpened on the whetting-stone of ideas.” (Bhagat Singh)

Madan Lal Dhingra, in 1909 was tried in London for the assassination of Sir Curzon Wylie, a former member of the Indian Political Department, and sentenced to death by hanging. “I believe that a nation held down by foreign bayonets is in a perpetual state of war.” Madan Lal Dhingra had said as he went to the gallows in Pentonville Prison. Dhingra had become a hero for the revolutionaries. Even Winston Churchill is reported to have called his statement to the court “[t]he Finest ever made in the name of Patriotism.” In a strange twist of fate, sixty-five years later in 1974, Madan Lal Dhingra’s coffin was accidentally discovered while authorities were searching for the remains of Udham Singh.

Madan Lal Dhingra (Mythical India)

Gulab Kaur, Indian_freedom

In San Francisco in 1913, the Ghadar Party was founded by a mainly Punjabi group, encompassing members from Sikh, Hindu and Muslim backgrounds. Ghadar is an Urdu word derived from Arabic, meaning “revolt” or “rebellion.” The party was committed to liberating India from British colonialism, and establishing a free and independent country with equal rights for all. (It’s important to note that Indian freedom fighters, who came from Sikh, Muslim, Hindu and other backgrounds, didn’t just want to get rid of the British, but had a clear vision of the kind of India they wanted to establish afterwards: a progressive, secular India with equality for all.) The Ghadar Party organized itself among communities across the world. One of their most active supporters was the wonderfully named Gulab Kaur, (Rose Kaur), who lived in Manila, kept a vigilant eye on party presses in disguise, and often posed as a press reporter to pass arms to Ghadar party members. Later, leaving her husband, she came to India to work for the cause. When captured, she endured two years in a Lahore jail, having been sentenced for ‘seditious acts.’ Sweta Ganjoo writes, she suffered inhumane torture, while imprisoned. Not surprising, as the authorities will have wanted to extract information about members of the Ghadar party and its networks. Some years later, when Udham Singh was in the States, he would also work for the Ghadar Party. When he was back in India, he was in possession of Ghadar literature when he was first arrested and imprisoned in 1927.

In 1915 the Ghadar conspiracy, also known as the Ghadar mutiny was attempted by Ghadar party members, but failed as their group had been infiltrated by agents and they were betrayed. However Sir Michael O’Dwyer, regarded their ideas as “by far the most serious attempt to subvert the British rule in India,”

details from photo by Kesar Singh taken at Amritsar Railway Station of Sikh political prisoners held in shackles & chains by the British authorities, 1938. Courtesy: Amarjit Singh Chandan Collection. Members of the Ghadar Party, the men are, from left to right:1. Santa Singh Gandivind 2.Dharshan Singh Pheruman. 3. Fauja Singh Bhullar. 4. Sohan Singh Bhakna (first president of the Ghadar Party. 5. Karam Singh Cheema.

The passengers comprised 340 Sikhs, 24 Muslims, and 12 Hindus. After an arduous voyage, when the ship arrived in Canada, its passengers packed and ready to disembark, it was refused permission to dock. A prolonged and bitter confrontation ensued with the Canadian government. Food and water was withheld from the ship, the passengers’ communication was limited with those on shore, an attempt to forcibly board the ship by the police was mounted, a navy ship and troops were mobilised. On shore, a group of Punjabis and other South Asians came together to support them, hired lawyers, lobbied on their behalf, and on several occasions sent out supplies when conditions became desperate. Notwithstanding their efforts, on July 23rdthe ship was forced to turn around and sail back.

Enduring another onerous sea voyage, when the ship finally docked at Budge Budge harbour, the police boarded the ship, attempting to arrest Gurdit Singh and others. Shots were fired and nineteen men were killed and many others arrested.

The story of the Komagata Maru was yet another addition to the litany of injustice which Udham Singh and other revolutionarties struggled against. Regarding himself as a soldier for the country, aspiring for an India where everyone had equal rights and dignity, Udham Singh had tattooed on his arm the name which meant the most to him: RamMohammed Singh Azad. Combining Hindu, Muslim, Sikh names and adding Azad, the word for freedom. Working for the independence movement and the Ghadar Party, Udham Singh had become a wanted man. In 1927 he was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. He was still in prison when he heard that his close friend Bhagat Singh, along with Rajguru and Sukhdev had been executed by hanging. Not just the execution of Bhagat Singh and the others, but the manner of it, would have added to his sorrow and grief.

TH05-BHAGAT_SINGH

“It is necessary for every person who stands for progress to criticise every tenet of old beliefs,” Bhagat Singh had written in an article; as well as writing the essay Why I Am An Athiest. Only 23 at the time of his execution he had become a charismatic figure. Passionate and willing to sacrifice everything, he had endured a hunger strike for 116 days, the longest at that time; only ending it when his father, himself a revolutionary and Ghadarite, begged him, as well as the Congress Party. Bhagat Singh and the others had been sentenced for the murder of Assistant Superintendent of Police John Saunders in 1928, in what came to be known as the Lahore Conspiracy Case. As well as the bombing of the Central Legislative Assembly in Delhi, in 1929 with Batukeshwar Dutt.

“If the deaf are to hear, the sound must be very loud.” Bhagat Singh had said. The bombing

(as dramatised in this clip from the 15 minute film The Legend of Bhagat Singh) wasn’t designed to cause fatalities but to draw attention to their protest against even more repressive laws being passed. After throwing the small bombs, the two sent down a rain of leaflets, explaining their action and then allowed themselves to be arrested. Bhagat Singh wanting to use the courtroom as a platform for spreading the ideas of the revolution; to argue against the raj, in the heart of the raj.

In prison, Bhagat Singh was horrifically tortured, tied naked to blocks of ice and severely lashed all over his body.

Sentenced to death with Rajguru and Sukhdev, their execution was brought forward by 11 hours, to 23rd March 1931 at 7.30pm, (executions were normally carried out at 8am in the morning), denying family members a last meeting, and their bodies immediately disposed of, so no proper funerals could take place. It’s said that shouts of ‘Inquilab Zindabad,’ meaning ‘Long Live the Revolution,’ a slogan used by Indian freedom fighters were heard within the walls of the jail.

Many unanswered questions had been raised by the manner of the execution and its aftermath. It was generally believed the English had tried to circumvent public grief and anger. However a book published in 2005 puts forward an altogether more ghastly and vengeful explanation. Titled, Some Hidden Facts: Martyrdom of Shaheed Bhagat Singh, it carries the subtitle “Secrets unfurled by an Intelligence Bureau Agent of British-India,” the book describes a conspiracy called ‘Operation Trojan-Horse,’ which ‘facilitated the pacification of the British officers in general and the prospective in-laws of the late J P Saunders in particular. Accordingly, Bhagat Singh and his associates did go through the formality of ‘hanging’ but only to the extent of breaking their necks; semi-conscious, they were taken to the Lahore Cantonment where the ‘Death Squad’, comprising Saunder’s family, shot them to quench their thirst for revenge.’ The bullet-ridden bodies later being secretly burnt to ashes. A decoy pyre was organised and the families deceived into believing it was the burning remains of their young men.

In December 1928, after having killed John Saunders, Bhagat Singh and Rajguru were being hunted by British Intelligence and hundreds of police officers. In an effort to protect themselves they had changed their appearance, cutting their hair and wearing western clothes. They came to Durga Bhabhi, where the three of them devised an escape plan. Bhagat Singh posing as an Anglo-Indian, carrying Durga Bhabhi’s three-year old son, Durga pretending to be his wife, and Rajguru their servant, the ‘family’ made their way through the massive police cordon to the train station, where they boarded a first class train carriage for Lucknow.

Around the same time, Chandrashekar Azad was helped to escape Lahore by Sukhdev’s mother and sister. Chandrashekar disguised as a sadhu ‘escorting’ the two women on a pilgrimage.

Such acts may sound simple but required nerves of steel and the willingness to risk life and liberty.

After the bombing and leafletting of Delhi’s Central Assembly, and the arrest of Bhagat Singh and many others, Durga’s husband has to go into hiding, his bomb factory having been discovered. Durga takes on the risky role of ‘undercover post-box’ for revolutionaries and their families, and attempts an assassination of Lord Hailey, a hated ex-governor of Punjab. In hiding, her husband is planning to bomb the jail where Bhagat Singh is incarcerated and free him; unfortunately he’s killed when testing a bomb on the banks of the river Ravi.

Heartbroken, Durga steps up her revolutionary activities, leading demonstrations and in October 1929, shooting a British policeman and his wife in Bombay, leading to her capture and imprisonment. And incident later to be described as “the first instance in which a woman figured prominently in a terrorist outrage”.

Years later, in 1939 she set up a Montessori school in Lucknow, with places for underprivileged children. In the film Rang De Basanti, the character played by Soha Ali Khan is based on Durga Devi.

Apna Punjab Live

This photograph of Udham Singh was taken after he had been released from prison, and shows a thin and suffering man. The police continued to harass him after his release. Eventually forcing him to leave India.

After 13thMarch 1940 as Udham Singh awaits trial in Brixton Prison, having clearly stated his motives for assassinating Sir Michael O’Dwyer, the authorities are anxious to hide the political nature of his action, and to try his case as one of ‘simple and mindless murder.’ ‘In the words of the C.C. (CID): “In this clear-cut murder case in which the ordinary evidence is very strong, it will be a pity if all the ‘rubbish’ which came from the lips of the prisoner is to come out in Court, and then in the newspapers.”

In a court document dated 5.6.40. Udham Singh has written what must be part of his speech to the court. I have no idea if he was able to deliver it, but here are some of the points he makes:

“British terrorism in India….India has been made a slaughterhouse… . Many women had their hair violently pulled and brought into the street where they were insulted and sharp instruments inserted into their bodies. Many died under the blow of the English blood bath, many had their faces mutilated, even their eyes taken out.”

Sheet “C” contains material copied from Udham Singh’s diary. It notes, “In the top right hand corner appears the following in Gurmukhi:” “1932 near Peshawar villages were burnt, clothes were removed, women and children were stripped naked. This went on for about three weeks ….”

It’s easy to mythologise people like Udham Singh who sacrificed their lives for the cause of freedom, and to forget they had other aspects to their characters. I was captivated when I came across the following video in which his love of the epic poem Heer . a classic by Waris Shah about the star-crossed lovers Heer and Ranjha, is revealed (from 6.00 – 8.00) and his desire to take his oath upon it at the Old Bailey. He appears to regard it as a sacred text, in the sense that it carries truth. As a writer, I believe that literature is a way of knowing the truth, or working towards it. He writes that he’s been refused permission to take his own copy of Heer into court and requests that a copy be acquired for the trial. It’s not known if a copy was made available and if he was allowed to take his oath on Waris Shah’s wonderful Heer.

In 1974, Sadhu Singh Thind, a member of the Legislative Assembly of India, persuaded Indra Ghandi to force the British to hand over Udham Singh’s remains, which he then accompanied back to India, where the remains were given a martyr’s reception.

Statues and monuments may have been erected to the freedom fighters, who not only fought for independence from British oppression, but for a secular India of universal equality. A vision cruelly disappointed by the rise of right-wing Hindu rule, violence against Muslims, Sikhs, and other minorities. A true monument to the freedom fighters would be a secular nation with an ethos based on a united country, determined to create equal opportunities and proper democratic governance. Such changes take decades upon decades, requiring thoughtfulness, scrutiny and adjustments, but it would be the strongest path India could take and the one for which the freedom fighters and Udham Singh sacrificed their lives.

The film Rang De Basanti, (Colour MeSaffron) successfully makes this very point, about the unity of the freedom fighters who came from different backgrounds, their vision of a progressive India where all had rights. Successfully flitting between contemporary India and the past, the film draws parallels between prevailing corruption, the oppression of the past, and the courage and legacy of the freedom fighters.

A legacy, heartbreakingly crushed even as Independence was finally achieved. The Partition tearing apart communities that had always lived together, unleashing terrible hatred and violence. Movingly captured in this trailer from the documentary ‘Rabba Hun Kee Kariya (God What Shall We Do Now) Thus Departed Our Neighbours, by Ajay Bhardwaj.

In our own time, as we hear of refugee ships searching for a place to dock, the Komagata Maru reminds us that todays tragedies aren’t alien to us, and we owe them our help and support. The globe is big enough and abundant enough to support us all, if we didn’t distort international and national relationships with fear and aggression, just as the power wielders of the British Raj did. The Globe’s increasing inter-connectivity should be used for establishing co-operative discourse and evolving new business models. Nothing is beyond our capacity. If a country which was ruled for two hundred years by an iron fisted power could liberate itself, then….

I’m going to finish in true Bollywood style with the title track from the film ‘Rang De Basanti‘ released in 2006.

Some background information: The song Rang De Basanti is popularly associated with Bhagat Singh. Several films depict Bhagat Singh, Rajguru and Sukhdev singing it as they go to the gallows, although this may be a transposition of what really happened, as it was reported that freedom slogans were heard being shouted within the jail, on the evening of their hanging. The song is attributed to Ramprasad Bismil and his associates, who were in jail in the spring of 1927, (Basant – is the season of spring – and associated with the vibrant colour of yellow or saffron). This song went on to become one of the most iconic songs of the pre-independence era, and post-independence also.

In this video from the film, ‘Bismil’ refers to Ramprasad Bismil who led a team of 10 revolutionaries in a daring raid on a train at the town of Kakori, in 1925, transporting money they firmly believed belonged to India, but was destined for the British Treasury. https://bit.ly/2vs6ihG

Rang De Basanti, is a complex tale about political awakening and sacrifice using the device of a film-within-a-film. A young Englishwoman arrives to make a documentary, based on her grandfather’s diaries, James McKinley, one of the wardens administering the imprisonment, torture and execution of the young revolutionaries.

1. There appear to be questions about whether Udham Singh was actually present at Jallianwala Bhag on the day of the massacre. The Tribune newspaper quotes Dr. Navtej Singh, who says, according to his research, Udham Singh was abroad on that terrible day, “but returned to the holy city (Amritsar) a few months after the momentous incident, which undoubtedly influenced him deeply and determined the course of his life,”. Dr. Singh places him as working for North Western Railways from 1917 to 1922. Further in the article Professor M.J. S. Waraich quotes Udham Singh as having been in Africa at the time of the massacre.

2. The Open University in its ‘Making Britain’ series, records that the Amritsar massacre, had left a lasting impression on Udham Singh as his brother and sister were killed there. It also places him in Dover, for three months in 1921, and then in the United States, working in Detroit and California, returning to India in 1927 – at which point all roads converge, as in 1927 in India, he was arrested and imprisoned.

3. Suffice it to say, possibly because of Udham Singh’s extensive travels and name changes, more sifting and analysing needs to be done. The truth remains that he dedicated his life to the Indian independence struggle. There can be no doubt about his pain and anger at the violence, degradation and inhumanity suffered by Indians, the systematic impoverishment of the country, his horror at the Jallianwala Bhag massacre and his desire to strike back, and strike a blow for freedom.

As 2019 will be the centenary of Jallianwala Bhag many books will be coming out. I’m looking forward to Anita Anand’s book on Udham Singh “The Patient Assassin: A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge and the Raj” where some of the inconsistencies may have been solved. As well as Kim A. Wagner’s ‘A New History Of The Amritsar Massacre,’ to be published by Yale University Press.

For those who want to do more reading on her, Gadar Di Dhee Gulaab Kaur (Daughter of Ghadar Gulab Kaur), written in Punjabi by S Kesar Singh is available. (Plea: perhaps some scholar could translate this book into English?) Revolve has some information on her too: https://www.revolvy.com/page/Gulab-Kaur

Seema Chisti, Indian Express Archive: “From U.S. The effort to free India from British: https://bit.ly/2LVkf2I

Professor Chaman Lal blog post: “On Ghadar Party Centenary in EPW”: https://bit.ly/2OfLlOK. His blog notes that Bancroft Library of University of California, Berekely holds: “… a Gadar archive with 20 boxes of documents and some digitised records.” Professor Chaman Lal further notes: “The Gadar Movement was the most advanced secular democratic movement of its time whose tradition was upheld and appropriated by Bhagat Singh later with further addition of the socialist ideology.”